Finally Enough To Fix The Fighter

With monsters streamlined, I have my eye on the classes. This move was probably inevitable to those of you who are familiar with d20 System-related projects. With tweaks and fixes to how monsters work, I want to turn my efforts toward the place where they could probably be helpful: character classes.

One of the first things I want to do with Dee Point Five is fix the fighter. There are a handful of basic tweaks and changes that I think can be made to the system that will enable this class to finally be all it can be. Don’t get me wrong, I would play a fighter, … eventually. If someone asked me to, and there wasn’t a room for a cleric.

My first thought? Remove iterative attacks from base attack bonus.

The fighter (and by extension, the barbarian, paladin, and other “full-BAB classes”) would instead receive class features that enable them to either make additional attacks, much as they did before, or to instead have some related, combat-relevant power that enables them to do more with their attacks than other classes.

Removing iterative attacks will probably break some spells that grant effect base attack bonus to spellcasters, and I’m fine with that. Third Edition spellcasters don’t need to be more powerful, and the few spells that fail will be trivial compared to the fantastic changes to the core game mechanics that need to be addressed.

Base attack bonus would be leveled across the playing field, with each classes simply receiving one-half their level to attacks, plus relevant ability modifier. The fighter would receive combat bonuses on par with their level, albeit with weapon attacks (including unarmed strikes). Even the monk and samurai might be worth something.

As for class features, I’d like for the fighter to have something like this:

Sure Strike [Fighter Class Feature]
Once per round, when you make a basic weapon attack, roll twice and take the better result. If both attack rolls would result in a hit, the attack deals an additional 1d6 damage. This damage increases to 2d6 at 5th level, 3d6 at 11th, and 4d6 at 15th.

This would replace iterative attacks for the fighter. Similarly, I’m thinking a modified version of Smite Evil would replace the paladin’s iterative attacks (with the fond hope of redeeming the smite power in the process), while the ranger would receive a bow attack feature, and the barbarian some kind of rage power.

Ultimately, I imagine I will change the more combat-oriented classes first. I’m not sure yet what I intend to do about spells, since they’re sort of the illegitimate child of Dungeons & Dragons and are difficult to balance in the grand scheme of things. Important, for sure. Just, difficult. Normally I’d start with magic, like in Norvendae.

Here, though? The magic system already dominates the system. I think it’s probably best to start with monsters, then fix the combat classes, working up to casters.